Louisville football: Are 2019 Cards underrated?

As the 2019 season approaches, Louisville football faces their lowest expectations in over a decade- but are these presumptions realistic, or are the Cardinals being overlooked?

2018 was a year to forget for those around the Louisville football program.

A team with an over/under win total of 7 at most sportsbooks finished without a power five conference win, dropped their last ten games of the season, and fired head coach Bobby Petrino midseason en route to six straight games where they game up more than 52 points.

After a season that was as ugly as it gets, it’s easy to see why the national perception is that the Cards will struggle once again in 2019.

Louisville breaks in a new coaching staff and a new system, doesn’t have a quarterback who could handle the pressure of taking over for Lamar Jackson last season and faces one of the toughest slates in college football. It’s certainly an uphill climb for Scott Satterfield and his staff entering the season.

Setting the bar

Louisville enters the season with the general consensus being that they will win about 3 or 4 games. The majority of sportsbooks currently have the Cards’ over/under set at 3.5, with FanDuel being among those are the higher side at 4 (Over +154, Under -184).

For full disclosure, Bovada has the Cards at +75000 if you want to get in on that action (probably don’t get in on that action).

Are the Cards going to be in the college football playoffs conversation come mid-season? Probably not. A new coaching staff and a ton of head-scratching holes on the depth chart remaining from the previous regime make this season look like a rebuild.

Okay, let’s not say “rebuild.” Perhaps, a “refocusing” year is apter. However, that refocus could open up a lot of opportunistic doors during the 2019 season.

Seizing momentum

For Louisville, the narrative of the 2019 season is going to hinge on how well the Cardinals handle the pressures of a power five college football season.

Much of the day-to-day pressure that the team and coaching staff are dealing with is directly tied to the bottom falling out last season under Petrino. The Cards gave an average appearance in the season opener against defending champion Alabama, called it a wash (pun intended) in a rain-soaked slop fest against Indiana State, survived a scare from Western Kentucky, and laid an egg against Virginia.

Still, Louisville came out of the first quarter of the season 2-2 and ready to seize momentum against Florida State. They did exactly that for 59 minutes before a complete mental collapse by the coaching staff and players led to an unbelievable Florida State win.

Just as Louisville was getting momentum to go in their direction, the wind came out of the sails. They never got back on track, dropping each game from there on out in increasingly ugly fashion.

Much of the same team that collapsed in 2018 returns this year for Satterfield, with a smattering of graduate transfers and instant-impact freshmen ready to fill some voids.

The name of the game this season will be momentum. If Louisville can jump out to a hot start against a top 10 Notre Dame team to begin the season, imagine how well that could bode for a team desperate for something to get excited about.

Though unlikely, if Louisville could hang with Notre Dame, Florida State, or another Power Five team for 60 minutes early in the season, that momentum could carry over to the remainder of the season and the rest of the Scott Satterfield era.

Louisville does not lack in talent, and at the skill positions, they do not lack in depth. However, what the Cards have lacked is competent leadership and it has resulted in an unusual lack of confidence around the program.

Satterfield hopes to change that from the start in 2019.

“It happens over time, and you have to be consistent,” Satterfield said at the ACC Kickoff. “We’re doing all these things with them because we want to have these interactions and camaraderie, so when it’s crunch time in the game, they know we’ve got their back, and I think that’s how that relationship works.”

The comradery was not all-too-common near the end of the Petrino era. Many players refused to buy in, and, though there was plenty of power five talent on the Louisville roster, it never lived up to its billing over the last five years.

When Louisville takes the field on September 2nd, it will have been 352 days since the Cards’ last victory. Perhaps it’s in a moment that Satterfield spoke of where, in crunch time, the team has to decide what they are made of,  that the momentum will finally shift back in the Cardinals favor. Instead of sinking in the waning moments of a close game, maybe Louisville will rise to the occasion.

Only then will we find out if this Louisville football team can rise above their lowly expectations.

Louisville’s expectations are about what they should be coming off of the season that they just had. However, it’s not inconceivable to think that the Cards could be much better than advertised.

There is a ton of high-level talent on this squad and Satterfield brings in a solid group of young up-and-coming coaches and mixes them with a number of seasoned veterans.

Though the season may ultimately wind up as a letdown for a lot of Louisville football fans, maybe we should let the cake bake first. Perhaps it’s like Dae Williams said. Maybe it’s not a rebuild.